Re: Dangerous installation of bullseye: What shall i do next?
On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 11:16:37PM +0100, Datakanja de Bruyn wrote:
Hi Datakanja
> Just a bit of context:
> I am old + handicapped + pretty much isolated, thus certainly not an expert.
> But i am happily using debian stable (oldstable by now) since several
> years. But since more and more software got outdated, i was interested
> to move to bullseye.
Today, more or less, there is a point release of both Debian 11 Bullseye and
Debian 10 (Buster). Buster will have one more point release, somewhere around
14th August 2022 at the point when it moves to LTS.
> In order to have 2 bootable instances (oldstable + stable), i installed
> and tested refind, in ordeer to have some safety during the migration
> period. I did test the whole setup, which went well.
What _exactly_ did you do? Refind is not guaranteed to work.
Did you have two partitions on the disk / two separate disks to do the install
on?
Did you use a graphical installer / text mode installer?
Did you use expert mode - which would ask you more detailed questions.
> Then installed
> bullseye (11.2), but after that, apparently nothing did work any longer.
> It took me several days to find out, what destroyed my configuration:
>
> 1. bullseye installer had installed grub2 over refind, thereby killing
> my setup made for safety purpose.
This would be standard, yes. Refind is not guaranteed to work and is thereby
NOT recommended.
> 2. Also, when i tried to boot into the oldstable by hand, it failed to
> come up due to some error in fstab, bcoz the installer, while
> reformatting the free partition, assigned a new partuuid to it, which no
> longer corresponded to the entry in fstab.
Also standard: there is no substitute for backups.
> 3. Furthermore, it installed a grub2 version, that is buggy and which
> cannot boot the bootentries, i was used to resort to in case of trouble
> (a.k.a. booting straight from an ISO image as an emergency system. The
> version installed was known to fail to boot on my kind of hardwae since
> several years, and i assumed (my mistake), that a stable debian would
> have been fixing the issue by now. (I refer to the links at the bottom).
>
I've just spent an evening testing media: grub2 works well. UEFI would
install grub-efi which also works. Grub-efi with secure boot also works
for both Buster and Bullseye.
> Ok. After days in panic, i was able to straigthen out my old system and
> get it to boot again. But since then, i am totally undecided (and a bit
> overwhelmed) with the options, i have to decide about now. What shall i
> focus on next?
>
I would suggest a clean install of Bullseye in expert mode - once you've
backed up any configuration files that are vital to you. I would also
suggest that you check that the machine's firmware is set to boot UEFI
only.
> 1. Try the whole process once again and manually downgrade grub2 in
> order to have the ISO-boot at hand? (What risk would that involve?)
The rescue mode put in by Bullseye and Buster is, effectively, the same
as an ISO boot in functionality
> 2. Report a bug (but honestly, i am not skilled enough to even determine
> the package(s) causing the mess i encountered. I suspect at least one of
> grub2 packages to be involved, but also the installer itself does a
> pretty careless job IMHO. (I learned to create proper assertion checks
> before shooting a working configuration to death.)
Check to see which grub package is installed: for UEFI, it should be
grub-efi
> 3. Continue to work with oldstable, which increasingly causes problems
> due to the outdated software involved. That is, what i am using right now.
>
I'd suggest that you do not do this: I'd suggest an upgrade in place - but
that might cause you as many problems.
> Or is there a better option? - Like maybe someone willing to assist in
> the process or at least guiding me some steps further?
> But i am scared to show the details of what i am doing, as i am a ZFS
> user since many years, which is pretty much non-standard!
>
You are (slightly) on your own there - I certainly can't help you but there
may be others on the list who can. Hints on the hardware configuration would
also be very much appreciated.
> The bug, i mentioned seems to be related to grub2 2.04 and UEFI booting,
> which is necessary on my machine:
> https://superuser.com/questions/755641/grub2-boot-error-out-of-memory
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1838633
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1851311
> https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2430437
>
> Any hint will be greatly appreciated.
> DdB
>
With every good wish, as ever,
Andy Cater
[Part of the Debian media team producing CD/DVD/Blu-Ray images - which
is why I know that the installer generally works well in both BIOS and
UEFI mode - we've been testing for about 12 hours straight now]
> --
>
> Liebe ist ...
> Datakanja
>
>
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